About Charlotte Lit
Charlotte Lit’s mission is to celebrate the literary arts by educating and engaging writers and readers through classes, conversations, and community.
Our vision is to be a valued and vital part of the Charlotte arts community and become a premier creative writing center for the region.
Charlotte Lit is a community, open to all. Through our programming and practices, we consciously reach out to non-majority and under-represented groups and individuals. — Charlotte Lit’s Statement of Inclusivity, adopted by our Board of Directors
Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, Inc. – “Charlotte Lit” – is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts center co-founded and incorporated in October 2015 by writers Kathie Collins and Paul Reali. Since our first program—Light the Night with Lit, featuring the poet Linda Pastan, in February 2016—Charlotte Lit has held more than 1,000 literary arts events and classes, reaching more than 10,000 participants.
In addition to educating emerging area writers, Charlotte Lit brings acclaimed writers to our city. Past guests include poets laureate Ada Limón and Tracy K. Smith (U.S.), Joseph Bathanti, Jaki Shelton Green, and Shelby Stephenson (NC), Junious “Jay” Ward (Charlotte), Laure-Anne Bosselaar (Santa Barbara, CA), Beth Ann Fennelly (Mississippi), Angelo Geter (Rock Hill, SC), and Chelsea Rathburn (Georgia). Other notable visiting writers include: Sandra Beasley, Erin Belieu, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Nickole Brown, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Wiley Cash, Jennifer Chang, Chen Chen, Tyree Daye, Abigail DeWitt, Richard Garcia, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Christine Hale, Lola Haskins, Terrance Hayes, Jessica Jacobs, A. Van Jordan, Maurice Manning, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Matthew Olzmann, Cecily Parks, and Paul Tran.
As a true community-centered organization, Charlotte Lit partners with many area orgs, including: Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Central Piedmont Community College, Queens University of Charlotte, UNC Charlotte, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Mint Museum, Goodyear Arts, Three Bone Theatre, Charlotte Writers Club, North Carolina Writers’ Network, History South, Independent Picture House, Park Road Books, Trope Bookstore, Market on Seventh Street, and others.
Did you know? Literature is the least-supported artistic discipline in the U.S., receiving only 1.9 percent of the $5 billion in grants awarded in 2023 (per data collected by Candid.org). Charlotte Lit seeks to advocate for literature’s equal place in the arts landscape, alongside visual and performing arts, throughout the Charlotte region and beyond.
What We Do
Craft Classes
Do you have a story to tell? Whatever your level of writing experience or preferred format, we have writing classes to help you practice and improve your craft, taught by the area’s best teachers.
Community Conversations
Do you long for a community of people with whom you can talk about that awesome best-seller, have a deep, soul-stirring conversation about the heart of a poem, or engage in truly civil discourse about society’s greatest challenges? Whether you’re looking for a book chat, a theme-based author reading and group discussion, or a deep-dive into poem, you can find your people at Charlotte Lit.
Explorations in Creativity and Culture
You don’t have to be a published writer, or even a budding writer, to engage with words. We have classes and offerings that engage other methods of storytelling—from visual journaling to film studies, from the soul of the poem to the archetypes of the collective unconscious—that can help you sharpen your creative edge. Whether you’re a published writer or someone just discovering the joys of reading, Charlotte Lit has tools and programming that will expand and deepen your relationship with the written word and bring you into a circle of community members seeking the kind of respectful, literature-based conversations that can help us to “write a stronger Charlotte.”
Our Co-Founders
Kathie Collins
Charlotte Lit Co-Founder & Creative Director
Poet & Mythologist
Kathie Collins, Ph.D., cofounded Charlotte Lit with Paul Reali in 2015 and has supported the organization in a variety of roles ever since. While it’s difficult to pinpoint job descriptions in an office where everyone does a little of everything, she’s recently taken to calling herself creative director. The rest of the team just calls her “Boss.” As the oldest of three and mother of five, the trait is ingrained. Kathie is also a poet, mythologist, and lifelong student of Jungian psychology. She is the author of Jubilee (Main Street Rag). Recent work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Flying South, Kakalak, Pedestal Magazine, and Santa Fe Literary Review. Her chapbook manuscript, Grass Widow, was named a finalist in Iron Horse Lit Review’s 2023 Chapbook contest. Contact: kathie@charlottelit.org.
Paul Reali
Charlotte Lit Co-Founder & Executive Director
Writer, Editor, Coach, Instructor
Paul Reali co-founded Charlotte Lit with Kathie Collins in 2015. He won the 2023 Doris Betts Fiction Award and is a past winner of the Elizabeth Simpson Smith Short Story and Ruth Moose Flash Fiction awards. His writing on creativity and business has been widely published, and his fiction is forthcoming in the North Carolina Literary Review. He was awarded a Wildacres residency in 2022, and received a Regional Artist Project Grant from Charlotte’s Arts & Science Council in 2018. He has an M.S. in Creativity from Buffalo State University, and an M.B.A. from Syracuse University. Contact: paul@charlottelit.org.
Contact Us • Find Us
Mailing Address:
Charlotte Lit or Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, Inc.
601 E. 5th Street, Suite 160
Charlotte, NC 28202
General e-mail: admin@charlottelit.org (the best way to reach us)
Phone: 704.325.9798 (voice or text)
BlueSky: charlottelit.bsky.social
Facebook: CLTLit
Instagram: charlottelit
